“When the party’s over, can you find another party somewhere?” This upbeat, brassy opening number led by Nick sets the go-for-broke 1920s scene of post‑war excess, boozy bashes, and Gatsby’s magnetic mystique.

“When you open, open, open up you’ll see, you’ll be an absolute rose, like I used to be,” Daisy sings. Floral metaphors bloom in this seemingly light and catchy character song with a darker edge. Daisy directs it first to Nick, then Jordan, and, finally, Tom.

Jordan leads this energetic jazz- and pop-flavored number that contrasts brash new wealth with established privilege while hinting that Gatsby’s enviable riches come courtesy of an iffy “modus operandi.”

This is perhaps the musical's most recognizable song: A clip of the cast performing "New Money" went viral shortly after the show's Broadway premiere, with numerous fans sharing videos of them doing the choreography themselves.

Gatsby’s lush, open-hearted ballad reveals his endless and obsessive devotion to Daisy and the years spent reinventing himself for her. “All the options weighed, every price I paid for her...”

Mechanic George Wilson’s moody, introspective number paints a bleak wasteland, a place that signifies his crushed hopes and space between haves and have-nots.

The song's title comes from the novel, in which Fitzgerald describes the Queens dumping ground amid which George lives as a "valley of ashes."

Clothes make the man. In this lively, brassy number, Wilson’s wife Myrtle laments her husband’s grubby clothes and hails the fine threads of her man on the side: Tom.

“I’m done with second-hand suits on a wedding day, no more settling for less," Myrtle determinedly sings. "I’ll live a life of dressing to impress.”

“For better or worse,” Daisy sings, “my vows have been made. I’m smart enough to know I’d lose everything if I strayed.” She weighs loyalty to Tom against the possibility of rekindling love with Gatsby in this intimate, heartfelt ballad.

Nick belts this comedic, finger-snapping number when Tom drags him to a party at the Manhattan apartment set aside for his affair with Myrtle. “I need a cup of coffee as the sun begins to set,” Nick sings, wishing he were elsewhere. “They sing ‘Ain’t We Got Fun’ so loud it’s sounding like a threat. Oh, they really should've dropped me at the Met.”

Alongside Nick, Gatsby drives this bouncy comic number as he anxiously over‑prepares for a supposedly casual meeting with Daisy and turns it into an over-the-top event: “There is no too much, there is no too far, there is only tea, and a rewrite of the stars.”

Gatsby and Daisy’s swoon-worthy, sweeping duet ends the first act on an emotional note. Like the famous green light in the novel, this song symbolizes their longing, reunion — and what’s just out of reach. “It’s a lighthouse, it’s a signal flare, stay back, come quick, move on, stay there.”

“I’m okay with keeping secrets, I’m okay with being naughty,” the less-than-reputable gambler Meyer Wolfsheim, an associate of Gatsby's, sings at the top of Act 2. This sly, jazzy number sheds light on the dark side of Gatsby’s glamour.

Nick and Jordan share a breezy, flirtatious duet as their relationship deepens and they playfully press for commitment. “We better hold tight,” they harmonize, “before this flies away.”

In Gatsby's dreamy, determined solo, he recalls meeting Daisy in leafy Louisville and how “time stood still” for him then. “We’ll go back to that kiss,” he croons, “to that row of willow trees.” Good luck with that, Jay.

Shimmying performer Gilda Gray leads a fizzy, showbizzy party number at Gatsby’s mansion that’s a less-than-subtle siren call. “Let your lips go la-dee-dah-dee-dah, as my hips go la-dee-dah-dee-doo.” Daisy dances to the song with Gatsby — and Tom's not happy.

Gray was a real 1920s performer who's credited with popularizing the shimmy as a dance move!

In Daisy and Gatsby’s emphatic, passionate, pop-laced duet, they consider her leaving Tom and running away together — now or never. “If we don’t go now, we may never know what this could be.”

Tom, Gatsby, Daisy, Jordan, and Nick clash at the Plaza Hotel, where showdowns arise in this rhythmically charged number. “He’s slick and he’s fast and he’ll run out of gas,” Tom snidely sings to Daisy about Gatsby. “None of this was made to last.”

Myrtle sings about feeling trapped in her marriage and chasing escape through Tom in this dark-tinged solo, which begins with a faint instrumental whiff of Stephen Sondheim's score for Sweeney Todd. “I will be a rich man’s wife with a rich man’s baby and be set for life,” she sings urgently. But roads don’t always lead where people hope.

In Wilson’s achy, dark-streaked solo, he vows divine justice after his wife Myrtle’s death. “You’ve got the eyes of God, Doc,” he sings, “who’s gonna be his hands?”

He's singing to a faded billboard displaying the eyes of optometrist Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. In the novel, Eckleburg's watchful eyes symbolize the all-knowing gaze of a God.

“Daisy, where else would she go? I’ll never take no for an answer.” Gatsby reasserts his devotion to Daisy, no holds barred, even as events close in on him.

The company revisits the theme of wealth and status, this time with a more ironic tone and darker harmonies as Gatsby's American dream withers and dies. “New money, look how he tricked ’em, now he’s a victim.”

Daisy’s reflective melancholy, and ultimately soaring solo ballad wrestles with her choices, regret, and her wish for her daughter that reveals self‑awareness beneath her charm.

The title is pulled from a famous line from the book's first chapter, in which Daisy hopes her daughter will be a "beautiful little fool": blissfully ignorant and content to be society's simple ideal of a woman.

The finale revisits the opening number's themes, but Nick stands apart from the ensemble this time. While he mourns Gatsby and question the American dream, Gatsby's onetime party guests move on to the next bash without a second thought to the dark side of their excess. Cheers.

Get The Great Gatsby tickets now.

Photo credit: The Great Gatsby on Broadway. (Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)